Mexican airlines have yielded and agreed with the federal government to migrate 204 daily operations from the Mexico City International Airport to the newly opened Felipe Angeles air port, so there will no longer be a decree to limit flights in the AICM, revealed the Undersecretary of Transport, Rogelio Jiménez Pons.
In an interview for El Financiero, the official explained that as of July, Aeroméxico will move 30 routes –60 operations– to the AIFA, while Volaris agreed to transfer 20 routes –40 operations–, and 10 more routes will be sent from the AICM to Santa Lucía. by VivaAerobus.
“All the cargo will also be transferred, which will take four or five months, 30 daily cargo flights plus charters, which are eight daily flights, two foreign companies, with one flight each, so they are above 102 flights, which mean 204, daily operations, because they are round trip flights”, added Jiménez Pons.
About, Aeroméxico reported that as of the second half of August it will increase its flights to and from the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) and by the end of October it will carry out 30 daily routes (or 60 operations), thus offering 1.5 million seats during the following year.
The move follows concerns raised by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) over the increase in incidents where planes are at risk of crashing against the ground or other obstacle.
The agreement will replace the decree that was expected to be published in the following months and corresponds to the government’s plan to send around 25 percent of the AICM’s operations to the Felipe Ángeles airport, which now only has 13 daily operations.
This plan is expected to last one year, after which around 250 operations will have been migrated from the capital’s air port to Santa Lucía and also to the Toluca airport.
“There is no longer a decree, the president himself said that there is no decree, so that they do not say that we are not taxing,” Jiménez Pons pointed out.
The agreement was sealed on Monday after a meeting with the Secretary of the Interior, Adán Augusto López, who reached a consensus with the airlines to carry out this plan.
Jiménez Pons ruled out that the transfer of operations is due tohe incident that occurred on Saturday at the AICM, where an aircraft had to perform a go-around procedure in the presence of another aircraft on the runway that had been designated for landing.
The official said that even moving only 25 percent of operations is a conservative figurebecause it could move up to 35 percent.
The objective of said plan is to desaturate the airport “which is a mess, there are delays every day, in addition to carrying out adaptation works in the AICM and providing critical mass to the AIFA. It is from my entry to the undersecretary’s office when we begin to make an estimate of how oversaturated the AICM is, and 25 percent is a conservative estimate, ”he added.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of the Interior (Segob) said in a statement that national and international airlines will maintain their slots – landing and take-off times – during the summer, but as of August 15, a significant increase in flights from Felipe Angeles International Airport.
The Segob explained that the airlines that have more than a year of debts with the AICM they will have to leave the premises airport and migrate its operations to another air terminal.
In that case, Interjet would be, the airline that owes more than 2 billion pesos in fuel to Airports and Auxiliary Services.
In this first stage, it is sought to have more than 100 daily flights, while a second stage will start on September 15, which would complete the 204 operations indicated by the Undersecretary of Transportation.
With these new guidelines, the entry of new flights to the AICM will not be allowed, and an increase in operations beyond the slots already authorized for this summer will not be allowed.
Problems in phraseology
Although the ‘moving’ of flights to AIFA does not respond to the incidents reported in the last year after the redesign, the official acknowledged that there are problems in the use of phraseology – the codes used by crews to communicate – on flights from Canada , United States and Europe.
Thus, while the Mexican controllers give an indication, the foreign pilots understand another, which has serious implications when dealing with operations where safety must be deprived.
“These are dangerous details, because suddenly they go to the right or up, they are having those codes in the redesign, all of that has to be submitted to review, the design must begin to be reviewed in detail, all of that is being worked on” , said.
In this sense, work tables have been set up with the airlines, pilots, controllers and even with NavBlue, the Airbus subsidiary company, which was in charge of carrying out the airworthiness studies to guarantee the interoperation of the three airports in the Valley from Mexico: AICM, Toluca and AIFA.